White Teachers and Black Teachers have Different Expectations for Black Students

March 31, 2016Emma BrownThe Washington Post

Many in the education world talk about the power of expectations, expressing the belief that if adults in a school expect students to succeed, then students will rise to that expectation, and if adults expect failure — well, that, too, can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Now a new study suggests that race plays a big role in influencing how teachers see their students’ potential for academic success, raising questions about whether teachers’ biases could be holding back black students and contributing to the nation’s yawning achievement gap.